X-class sun flare leads to communication blackout on Earth

Posted by

US space agency NASA has announced that a powerful solar flare has erupted from the Sun on April 24 which has dismantled the communication system for some hours on our Earth.

According to Space.com, the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center has said that the sun flare led to a high-frequency radio blackout for approximately an hour on the daytime side of the Earth in some areas.

The flare was an X1.4 flare. The observation was made by the space agency’s Solar Dynamics Observatory which has photographic evidence of the solar event.

The most powerful solar flare ever recorded was an X28 flare which occurred on November 4, 2003, the European Space Agency said. The space agency said the flare saturated the X-ray detectors on several monitoring satellites.

According to NASA, a solar flare is a “sudden, rapid and intense variation in brightness”, which occurs when magnetic energy that has built up in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released.

Scientists say, the harmful radiation from sun flare cannot penetrate the atmosphere of the Earth to physically impact humans. However, it can impact the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

Earlier in 2012, the Earth has fortunately missed encounter with a fierce solar magnetic storm, an event that could have wreaked havoc with the electrical grid, disabling satellites and GPS had it come nine days earlier.

According to the researchers, if the massive eruptions had came nine days earlier it would have hit the planet badly with destroying the electrical grid, disabling satellites and Global Positioning System, besides disturbing our electronic lives.

Following analysis of the 2012 event, researchers concluded that a huge outburst on the Sun on July 22 propelled a magnetic cloud through the solar wind at a peak speed of more than 2,000 kilometres per second – four times the typical speed of a magnetic storm.

Researchers say, the magnetic cloud tore through Earth’s orbit but, luckily, Earth and the other planets were on the other side of the Sun at the time.

If any planets would have been in the line of sight, then they would have suffered severe magnetic storms as the magnetic field of the outburst tangled with the planets’ own magnetic fields.